Beethoven & Mendelssohn

«Con brio – mit Feuer»: There are few performance markings that Ludwig van Beethoven used as often, few that are as characteristic of him as this succinct but decisive instruction for musicians. «Allegro con brio» is written above the first movement of his highly dramatic Fifth, one of his most famous, universally recognised creations, but one that has not featured in a Tonkunstler subscription since 2019: From difficult inner and outer battles in C minor, the work finally leads to the C major triumph of a revolutionary march through streets of jubilant crowds. Jörg Widmann translated Beethoven’s unmistakable vigour into his own musical language in 2008, and will certainly also be an effective presence in the Beethoven Year 2027. In between, however, the Venezuelan conductor Domingo Hindoyan and the Canadian violinist James Ehnes join forces with the Tonkunstler for another work that has long been missing from the orchestra’s programme: Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, which begins in elegiac longing and finds its way into a capricious world of elfin magic.